In the upcoming sequel to Supergiant’s roguelite, Hades, the previous protagonist of Zagreus is replaced by a new one known as Melinoë in Hades 2. Like Zagreus before her, she’s not the most well-known of the Greek Pantheon, but exactly who is she?
Melinoë is another child of Hades and Persephone, only maybe not. She’s often depicted as the daughter of Zeus and Persephone, the Queen of the underworld. However, she was conceived after Zeus tricked Persephone into believing he was her husband Hades. Hades and Zeus are sometimes considered to be the same God in certain versions of Orphism.
So, truly, Hades 2 could go either way with it, though the games seem to consider Zeus to be separate from Hades. However, Melinoë has a distinctive feature similar feature to Zagreus, which is the red and green heterochromia, which is supposedly a color combination derived from their two parents. That suggests that Supergiant are going by the Hades/Persephone parentage. During the technical test stream, it was mentioned that she is “believed to be connected to Hades as potentially his daughter,” so it might be getting left ambiguous on purpose. At the very least, Melinoë would look to Hades as her adoptive father.
Melinoë is often described in the Orphic religion as being the goddess of nightmares, and often, this is extrapolated to cover fear, madness, ghosts, and even witchcraft.
The woman training Melinoë in the beginning of the trailer is Hecate, who is often associated with the duality of light and darkness or crossroads. In later interpretations, Hecate is also associated with witchcraft.
In Hades 2, Melinoë is on a journey to kill the titan Chronos. In Greek mythology, Chronos wasn’t actually a titan, but rather the personification of time. The similarly named Cronus was a titan who often isn’t depicted as having much to do with time, normally just associated with the harvest. Sometimes, Chronos and Cronus are confused, but other times, they are intentionally combined. Either way, Supergiant appears to be presenting them as an amalgamation.
According to the mythology, Cronus was imprisoned in Tartarus after the gods overthrew the titans. That may be Melinoë’s destination.
A lot is still left in the air, and that may be entirely for narrative reasons. While it’s clear she fights for Hades, who her biological father truly is might be used as a plot point in the story told by Supergiant. We’ll have to wait and see when Hades 2 is released into early access later this year.
